The sudden end of hostilities in World War II, formally concluded on 2 September 1945, did not immediately reduce
the press of military staff work or dispose of the grave issues in national
military organization that had
come to stand out in high relief in the later war years but had been fended off
by improvisation rather than finally settled. Washington agencies and staffs
worked feverishly on the occupation of Germany and Japan, the unsnarling of
deployed and redeployed forces, and demobilization.
In contrast to the years just past, all these tremendous undertakings, which
materially affected urgent military tasks and long-range responsibilities, were
carried out in the midst of
national debate, both in Congress and in the press. Above all, looming in the
background, was the general problem of the postwar structure of the armed
services of the United States, a matter of professional and personal interest to every Army and Navy officer.

The precedents of World War II were cited, interpreted, reinterpreted, recommended, and condemned, particularly the
performances of the high command and the higher staffs in Washington. Those
precedents would be the point of
departure for discussions and debate for years to come. It was clearly
desirable for the Army insofar as possible to sift out permanent principles of
organization and procedure from other less tangible and controllable factors in
successful performances, such as personal qualities of leadership and the energy and
talent of wartime personnel. In the first two years after the Japanese
surrender, a number of major organizational changes were made in the national
defense system affecting staff work in support of the high command and
therefore affecting the methods and traditions
OPD had established. The direction and implications of these changes is not yet
altogether clear, and the permanent usefulness
in the Army of the idea that OPD represented is uncertain. This concluding
chapter is a kind of epilogue to the institutional
biography of OPD, tracing the influence
of its subject as it reached out into the future. On the other hand, it may be
more nearly an epitaph, memorializing the gone and soon to be forgotten. In any
case, it describes in a very summary form the issues in military policy that
arose and the major reorganizations that took place between September 1945 and the passage of the National
Security Act in July 1947, relating these issues in passing to the history of
OPD in World War II.

Postwar Study of Army Organization

OPD, like the rest of the Army, continued to work at full speed for some time
after the Japanese surrender. The Troop Control Section of the Theater Group,
built up to handle the redeployment of forces from

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Europe to the Pacific, guided the post-hostilities
deployment homewards for the hasty demobilization that followed as a
consequence of national public demand rather than military decision. A large
volume of politico-military staff work, particularly the part of it
concerned with defining occupation policy and sketching plans for the postwar military establishment of
the United States, was handled in S&P, especially in the new section
organized under Colonel Bonesteel after the end of hostilities. Accordingly,
General Hull directed that the September 1945 organization of
OPD be continued, with maximum economy of personnel being effected as duties
diminished, pending a major decision as to the permanent postwar organization
of the War Department.1 What OPD was to become was worked out in the course of
ensuing months as part of the larger problem of what the entire high command
and staff of the Army would be like and how it would fit into a national
defense organization embracing ground, air, and naval forces.

For the purpose of proposing an "organization appropriate for peacetime adoption,"
a board of officers under Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch was constituted on 30
August 1945 to "examine into the present organization of the War
Department." 2 The board conducted inquiries for several weeks, submitted
its report to the Chief of Staff on 18 October 1945, and was dissolved two days later. The Patch Board
report was circulated for comment or
concurrence by the General and Special Staff Divisions, and to major commands in
the zone of interior and overseas. 3

The Patch Board professed to have based its report on World War II experience,
and many of its provisions were designed to carry into permanent effect the
arrangements worked out pursuant to the 1942 reorganization. Thus it
recommended abolishing the positions and offices of the Chiefs of Infantry,
Field Artillery, Cavalry, and Coast Artillery, in abeyance since 1942, and
keeping the Army Ground Forces to control ground combat training. It also
proposed that the Army Air Forces retain its World War II status with as much autonomy
as possible so that it could be separated easily from the War Department
in case an independent air establishment should be set up by law, a project
which the Army had been fostering as part of its plan for creating a single
Department of Defense containing ground, air, and naval arms.4

In the area of high command and the General Staff, also, the Patch Board very
consciously attempted to apply the lessons of World War II. It set forth as a
vital principle that the "top organization of the War Department must be
capable of

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carrying out the Chief of Staff's orders quickly and effectively and must also
have the means and the authority to supervise and direct the actual execution
of such orders." Deprecating the "much quoted statement that 'a
General Staff should be restricted to matters of high policy and planning and
must not operate,' " the board recorded its belief that "while the
General Staff must be the agency to deal with matters of high policy and
high-level planning, it must also operate and direct, to the end that orders
and directives are issued and supervised to the necessary degree in their
execution." It noted the "devitalization of the General Staff during
wartime" with the exception of G-2 and OPD. It also recommended that the
staff should be organized "with a minimum
of individuals reporting directly to the Chief of Staff or his Deputy."
Finally, the Patch Board urged the "aggressive application of
the principle of decentralization," stating that "no
functions should be performed at the staff level of the War Department which can be decentralized to
the Major Commands or the Services without loss of adequate control of
operations by the Staff."

Nearly all of these principles reflected accurately the experience of the War Department
in World War II, particularly the experience of OPD. The emphasis on "carrying
out the Chief of Staff's orders quickly and effectively," without regard
to abstract restrictions on staff activities, plus the policy of
decentralization of duties, was the essence of OPD's philosophy. The Patch
Board did, however, use the term "operate" somewhat loosely in recommending that the
General Staff "operate and direct." A more correct way of expressing the
wartime philosophy of OPD would have been to say
that a staff should direct operating agencies sufficiently to insure that orders were being executed,
not permitting fear of becoming involved in operating to prevent the performance
of the duty. OPD did not "operate" as a matter of principle but
rather refused to let any arbitrary or abstract limitation on staff authority
stand in the way of what it considered necessary for discharging in full the
staff function of issuing commands and observing that they were executed.

The Patch Board proposed, in line with its emphasis on staff direction of Army
activities, that the chiefs of General Staff Divisions should adopt the title
of "Director" and should "have the authority to plan, direct and
supervise the execution of operations within the confines of his
sphere of action." This idea was even further spelled out:

The old theory that a staff must limit itself to broad policy and planning
activities has been proved unsound in this war. . . . Unless a staff officer is
able to assist his commander in getting things done, in addition to coor
dinating, planning and policy-making,
he is not serving his full usefulness. In short a staff is a commander's
principal means for determining that his orders, instructions, and directions
are being carried out as he intended.

Pursuant to this concept, the Patch Board recommended allocating
the "operating" functions of the Army Service
Forces, an organization which it did not propose to perpetuate,
among the General Staff Divisions, each supervising the work of
the administrative and technical services insofar as they fell within their respective spheres of
functional responsibility. This arrangement plainly put the weight of responsibility for the execution of
orders on the General Staff. It went considerably farther than giving the
General Staff directors permission to "operate"
if necessity arose. It made them take "operating" responsibility for
the work of

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the "operating" agencies of the Army. How this procedure could in
practice be reconciled with the principle of decentralization was open to question.

In one important respect the Patch Board proposed to depart from World War II
precedents. It recommended returning control of military operations in the overseas
commands to G-3, which would be re-designated the Operations and Training
Division of the General Staff. OPD's Theater Group would be absorbed in the new G-3 Division. Since the
Logistics Group was to be transferred to G-4, only one of the wartime groups in OPD would remain. It
would be S&P, which would constitute a Plans Division of the General Staff performing much the same function
as WPD before Pearl Harbor.

OPD officers reacted to the Patch Board report with mixed approval and dismay.
Most of them found generally acceptable the procedures and principles recommended
by the Patch Board with a view to strengthening
the General Staff as a whole, but all of them protested against separating
strategic planning from control of operations. General Hull drew on the content and language of comments by
his group chiefs in drafting a detailed commentary on the Patch Board report.
His main criticism concerned the failure to preserve intact the dual staff responsibility that had fallen to OPD
during the war. General Hull observed:

Plans and Operations should be combined and the Training Section should be
charged with organization and training. This consolidation of plans and operations under one head appears
necessary to achieve essential coordination.
The experience of the Operations Division in World War II has indicated that
such is a vital necessity. An aspect of the problem
which dictates the above is the relation of political with operational matters.
Political considerations are strong factors in wartime; they will
be stronger in peacetime and perhaps predominant, and the Chief of
Staff and Secretary of War as well as the JCS organization, the Secretary of State and SWNCC, will look to
one office for the marriage of the political and military. This will logically
be the responsibility of the officer in charge of planning and policy even though the
pressing military-politico problems will often be
classified as operational. It must further be recognized that U. S. relations
are so complicated that no matter how effective a long-range plans organization becomes we will, at least
for several years, still be writing important plans and policy on short notice
from the operational cables.

He further recommended:

Change title to Director of Operations and Plans. The Director of Operations
and Plans should be charged with the over-all supervision of military operations as well as the preparation of
strategic plans. During the recent war effort, the Operations Division, WDGS, was most successful in effecting
close coordination and control. This proven agency should be retained.

To carry out these recommendations in detail, General Hull suggested the
addition of three extremely important duties besides general strategic planning
to the listed responsibilities of the Director of Plans [and Operations]:

He will exercise supervision and direction of matters relating
to overseas commands.Advise the Assistant Secretary of War on
all military-politico matters. . . . Review, and after coordination with other
interested War Department agencies, recommend action to the Chief of Staff
on action papers of the Joint or Combined Chiefs of Staff.5

The board of officers for studying reorganization
was reconstituted, effective 6 December 1945, with Lt. Gen. William H.

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Simpson as president in the place of General Patch, who died on 21 November.
Its mission was to consider comments on the original Patch
Board report, make any warranted revisions, and draft appropriate orders for
putting the reorganization into effect. The new board worked rapidly and
submitted its report on 28 December 1945.6

In most respects the provisions of the Patch Board report were retained as
sound recommendations. The major changes introduced
were those recommended by General Hull, whereby the Director of Operations and
Training (revitalized G-3) became the Director of Organization and Training, and his responsibility for
"supervision and direction of matters relating to overseas commands" was transferred to the Director
of Plans. The latter officer thereby became the Director of Plans and Operations, with responsibility for
developing "strategic and operational plans" and in addition for "assisting
the Chief of Staff in preparing the Army for war and in the strategic direction
of the military forces in the theaters of war."

The Simpson Board report, as revised 18 January 1946, was promptly
"approved for planning purposes" by the Chief of Staff, then General
Eisenhower. In this form it represented to a considerable extent the principles
of War Department organization and procedure embodied in OPD's wartime
practices. In particular the acceptance of the idea of a combined plans and
operations staff left the successor to OPD with comprehensive powers. In some ways the Simpson Board
report, especially where it deviated from the Patch Board report, gave an
appearance of being an OPD-contrived
study. The original Patch Board report had gone far, perhaps too far, in
recommending OPD's techniques to the rest of the General Staff, but had
deliberately recommended going back to the pre-Pearl
Harbor division of duties among the five divisions of the War Department
General Staff. In the interim the Assistant Chief of Staff, OPD (General Hull),
had suggested changes to the Deputy Chief of Staff (General Handy, his predecessor in OPD). The Deputy Chief of
Staff instructed the board to consider these comments, most of which were
incorporated, and the final report was then approved by the Chief of Staff
(General Eisenhower, General Handy's predecessor in OPD).

Nevertheless, the Simpson Board reorganization continued to contain two provisions
contrary in spirit if not in the letter to OPD's experience. In the first
place, the General Staff directors were made responsible for "operating" duties rather than made
free to supervise in as much detail as necessary the execution of such duties
by "operating" agencies in conformity with General Staff
instructions. This strong emphasis on "operating" achieved the desired result as far as supervision of
execution of orders was concerned, but it also made the General Staff directly
responsible for the performance of duties that were bound to pre-empt a great
deal of General Staff time and were likely to interfere with the formulation of general plans and policies.
It tended to run counter to the injunction to decentralize duties and it
overlooked the extent to which OPD had depended on merely monitoring the
activities of Army agencies to pick the critical points for staff action rather
than engaging in routine duties.

In the second place, although the Plans and Operations Division was left with a

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formidable concentration of powers, it was not made superior in any way to the
other General Staff Divisions. OPD had never enjoyed
any special status on paper, but its size and responsibilities, in contrast to
the small and limited G-1, G-3, and G-4 Divisions
of the General Staff, had made its influence paramount. OPD officers on the
working staff level had drawn on the information
and ideas of their colleagues in many other agencies bringing it all together
in one place, OPD, where one officer, the Assistant Chief of Staff at the head
of the Division, had authority to make decisions on any matter affecting military operations and
where the same officer had competent specialists to advise him on strategic
plans, logistic plans, and actual operations. In peacetime, with
out the urgency of military operations
in process, and with "operating" responsibilities assigned to much larger G-1, G-3, and G-4 Divisions
than had existed during World War II, the co-ordination that OPD had been able
to bring about informally was not going to be easy to achieve.

Some future Chief of Staff in the period of transition from peace to a possible
future war probably would need
co-ordinated advice just as much as General Marshall had needed it in 1942.
That advice, to be most effective, would have to tie strategic planning and
military operations to the mobilization, training, and equipment and supply
programs of the zone of interior. The Chief of Staff himself would find it hard
to absorb and evaluate the mass of details necessary for such co-ordination. He
would need a staff. Under the Simpson Board scheme, the staff best fitted to
co-ordinate all these kinds of planning on behalf of the Chief of Staff was
likely to be the Plans and Operations Division. Prompt and efficient
co-ordination, however, might prove as difficult between five coequal "operating"
staff divisions as it had between five coequal "nonoperating"
staff divisions in 1941. The integration of all planning on the basis of
detailed information and after coordination
of the various points of view would not clearly be the function of any one
staff. The Chief of Staff, with such help as his deputy could give, still would
have to try to bring about this final co-ordination himself.

While co-ordination of Army plans and policies by the Chief of Staff alone
might have been feasible in peacetime like the "peacetime" of the
1920's, it was far from certain after World War II that one man, even if
assisted by one or two or a half-dozen deputies, could give proper weight to all the detailed considerations in a long
sequence of interrelated Army activities dependent
on a single policy decision. In effect, during World War II General Marshall
had had about two hundred officers, including strategists, operations officers,
and logisticians, all working for him on the coordination
of Army affairs that had a bearing
on military operations. In a sense, the Assistant Chief of Staff, OPD, was a
special deputy for the Chief of Staff and had at his elbow the information, the
judgment, and the staff services of about two hundred subdeputies.

Designating a single staff like OPD and finding a single standard of value like
success in actual operations admittedly were more difficult in peacetime than in the emergency of 1942. Yet
a report on permanent staff organization might profitably have touched on this problem at least in passing,
and indicated how that permanent organization would adapt itself to the approach
of war. On this problem the Simp son Board report, like the Patch Board
report, was silent.

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Reorganization in 1946

Temporary "authorizations for personnel
to govern upon reorganization of the War Department" were issued on 1
April 1946 in order to give a finite quality to the advance planning. The
personnel allotment revealed how
heavily the General Staff Divisions were going to be burdened with activities
formerly carried on by other agencies,
particularly by the Army Service Forces. While the Plans and Operations was
authorized 82 officers, a considerable reduction from OPD's peak size, the
other divisions were comparatively large organizations.
Service, Supply and Procurement
(S,S&P, formerly G-4) was allotted 200 officers; Personnel and
Administration (P&A, formerly G-1), 100 officers; and Intelligence Division
(ID, formerly G-2), 250 officers. Only Organization and Training (O&T, formerly G-3) was smaller
than Plans and Operations, with 60 officers.

During April, while the Simpson Board reorganization was shaping up for final
approval, General Eisenhower and
his deputy, General Handy, were required to comment on some of the central
features of the new organization in justifying it to the Bureau of the Budget.
The time-honored issue of General Staff "operating" had to be dealt
with, and General Eisenhower tried to explain
the "follow-up" function of the staff:

In commenting upon the fear
that the new organization implies an intention to engage the General Staff in operation,
I can only say that this is most emphatically not the case. Long experience
has shown that the process of investigating, and informing the Secretary of War
requires a degree of "follow-up" that is essential to efficiency but
which, if abused, inevitably leads into operation and unwarranted
interference. There is no specific organization that will
eliminate this tendency. Only proper indoctrination and careful policing by the
head of the organization will keep true General Staff functions separated from those of the operating
services. The new organization retains the old operating services and charges
these, and appropriate commanders, with the responsibility of operating the whole.7

Similarly, General Handy observed that it was unfortunate that General
Simpson's report had used the phrase "operate and direct," and that
the wording had already been changed in the War Department circular in preparation "omitting the
word 'operate' and substituting 'direct and supervise'" therefor. In conclusion, General Handy
asserted, "there is no intention of permitting
the General Staff to 'operate' in the sense that a command or a service
'operates.' The General Staff directs, co-ordinates and supervises (follows
up)." 8 Both of these explanations accurately reflected OPD's experience.
The provisions of the Simpson Board report did not distinguish so clearly
between operating and following up, and it was far from certain that staff officers
trying to work under the terms of the Simpson
Board reorganization would be able to observe the distinction in practice.

Presidential approval for the reorganization
finally came on 13 May 1946. War Department Circular 138, containing the
official instructions governing the reorganization,
was distributed on 14 May, and the reorganization became effective 11 June
1946.9 Circular 138 embodied the principles
and used the language of the final

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Simpson Board report. It made two major administrative changes in the Army as a
whole. First, it established the Army Ground Forces as the headquarters through
which the Chief of Staff commanded the six armies concurrently established and
assigned to six army areas in the continental United States. These permanent
elements of the ground Army replaced the old field force organization
and the corps areas. Second, the new circular abolished Headquarters, Army Service Forces, bringing back as
quasi-independent War Department agencies the administrative and
technical services.

Insofar as the General Staff was concerned,
the abolition of the Army Service Forces brought two important changes. First,
the Director of Personnel and Administration
(G-1) absorbed the functions and staff of the Army Service Forces Military
Personnel Division, the agency that had controlled the assignment of military
personnel during the war. Although the Director of P&A
was authorized to reassign parts of this function to The Adjutant General,
P&A was brought intimately into the task of procuring, allocating, and
managing military manpower.

Second, the Service, Supply, and Procurement Division (G-4) assumed complete
responsibility with respect to "service, supply, and procurement
activities," although by official fiat the "command functions"
which the Army Service Forces had exercised in connection with these activities
were abolished and thereby somehow transformed to staff functions. In addition,
S,S&P absorbed the functions and personnel of the Logistics Group, OPD. As
a result of this reorientation, S,S&P became a large organization deeply
involved in equipping, supplying, and providing services
for the Army. A new General Staff Division; Research and Development, was also temporarily established in the
reorganization of 1946. This was merged in December 1947 with
S,S&P, which subsequently was renamed the Logistics Division.

The Organization and Training Division (G-3)
found its status almost unaffected by the reorganization, continuing to be concerned
primarily with Tables of Organization and training
policies. The Army Ground Forces remained in existence as headquarters for the
six Army areas in the zone of interior, and Plans and Operations controlled the
overseas commands. Plans and Operations carried on the activities of OPD minus
those of the Logistics Group, which it lost to S,S&P. Finally, the Intelligence
Division (G-2) did much the same work as always.

The way these divisions were expected to work and the authority they exercised
on behalf of the Chief of Staff were set forth unequivocally in the circular.
The Chief of Staff's command of all Army forces was specifically affirmed, and
something like the staff technique followed by OPD during the war was
prescribed for the whole General Staff. The propriety of this technique for managing the detailed work of zone
of interior programs was not examined, but the language and instructions
plainly presumed that the problems were analogous. The circular read:

The Chief of Staff is the principal military adviser to the President and to
the Secretary of War on the conduct of war and the principal
military adviser and executive to the Secretary of
War on the activities of the Military
Establishment. The Chief of Staff has command of all components of the Army of
the United States and of the operating forces comprising the Army Ground
Forces, the Army Air Forces, the army areas, oversea departments, task forces,
base commands, defense commands, commands in theaters of

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operations, and all other commands, and the related supply and service
establishments of the Army, and is responsible to the Secretary of War for
their use in war and plans and preparations for their readiness for war. The
Chief of Staff, under the direction of the Secretary of War, is responsible for
the coordination and direction of the War Department General and
Special Staffs and the administrative and technical services. . . .

The War Department General Staff, under the direction of the Chief of Staff,
will be responsible for the development of the Army and will insure the existence of a well-balanced
and efficient military team. It is specifically charged with the
duty of providing such broad basic policies and plans as will enable the
Commanding Generals of the Army Ground Forces, the Army Air Forces, task
forces, theaters of operations, oversea commands, and such other commands as
may be established, and the heads of the administrative
and technical services, to prepare and execute detailed programs. In addition,
the General Staff assists the Chief of Staff by issuing in the name of the
Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff, necessary directives to implement such
plans and policies and supervises the execution of these directives. In performing
its duties the General Staff follows the principle of decentralization to the
fullest degree. No function will be performed at the general or special staff
level of the War Department which can be decentralized to the major commands, the,army areas, or the
administrative and technical services without loss of adequate control of operations by the General and Special
Staffs. The War Department General Staff will include six divisions, each under the immediate control of a
director. Each director will plan, direct, and supervise the
execution of operations within the confines of his sphere of action. In
carrying out their duties, the Directors of the six General Staff Divisions will be guided by the following general principles:

a. They will plan, direct, coordinate, and supervise. They will
assist the Chief of Staff in getting things done, in addition to
coordinating, planning, and policy-making on an Army-wide
level.

b. They will, by means of direct contact with troops, determine that orders,
instructions, and directions are being carried out as the Chief of Staff intended.

c. They will follow the principle of decentralization
to the fullest degree. The War Department General Staff will concern itself primarily
only with matters which must be considered on a War Department or Army-wide level. All other matters will be decentralized
down to the proper echelons of command for action or decision. In order for
this to be done properly, adequate authority will be delegated to responsible
commanders and the heads of the administrative and technical services. Each
director will take necessary action to indoctrinate
each officer of his division with a thorough understanding of the duties, functions,
responsibility, and authority of the various echelons of command in the Army.10

In addition to a General Staff organized along these lines, the War Department as set up in 1946 contained ten "Special Staff" divisions reporting to the Deputy Chief of Staff on
such special fields of activity as public relations, military history, and
budget. Most of them had been established during World War II to perform their
special functions for the Secretary of War or the Chief of Staff. Finally, there were five
"administrative services" and eight "tech nical services," the former working primarily under
the supervision of P&A, and the latter under the supervision of S,S&P.
The circular specifically indicated the dual nature of the services as operating agencies (with command
functions) and administrative and , technical staffs serving the Secretary of War and Chief of Staff. It
enunciated the principle that the "two functions of staff and command, although vested in a single individual,
are separate and distinct in that each involves different responsibilities and duties, and the exercise of one
is not to be confused with nor permitted to interfere with the exercise of the other." 11

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All of these arrangements, plus the establishment of two or three special offices
or committees and the organization of the Army Air Forces on a virtually autonomous
basis, gave the reorganized Army an extraordinarily complex structure at the War Department
level. The chart showed twenty-nine individual staffs reporting directly either to the Chief of Staff or his deputy.

National Security Act

Minor changes in the basic Army organization and terminology of Circular 138 came about as a result of the passage of
the National Security Act of 1947 (Public Law 253, 80th Congress), approved 26
July 1947. This act reorganized the National Military Establishment by creating a
U. S. Air Force on an independent basis, legalizing the JCS committee system,
and grouping all three service departments (Army, Navy, and Air Force) under a
Secretary of Defense. The latter official was designated "principal assistant to the
President in all matters relating to the national security," exercising "general direction, authority, and
control" over the three departments of the National Military Establishment.
The legislation also provided for a National Security Council, composed of the
President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary
of Defense and his three immediate subordinates, and the Chairman of the
National Security Resources Board, a new agency created concurrently to
"advise the President concerning the coordination of military, industrial,
and civilian mobilization." 12 The contemporary Secretary of
the Navy, James V. Forrestal, became first
U. S. Secretary of Defense and thenceforth attempted to co-ordinate the
civilian control exercised over the military services by the civilian heads of
the three services.

A great many of the ideas that Army planners had long advocated were embodied in the National Security Act,
for which the Army fought vigorously. Some compromises with what the Army had
wanted were made, notably in the failure to provide for a Chief of Staff of the
armed services to co-ordinate military plans and operations for the Secretary
of Defense and the President. The committee of the Chiefs of Staff remained the
highest professional military authority in the nation. Its status changed
primarily by virtue of the creation of a small, independent working staff, assigned directly to the JCS system
rather than delegated from some particular staff in one of the three services.
The Department of the Army (as the War Department was renamed) could anticipate that many of the Junctions that OPD
had performed informally and sometimes with misgivings would be handled in a more systematic way within the
framework of the new national security structure. While Plans and Operations
might in a future war play the role of OPD inside the Army, its planners would
presumably never have such a dominant influence in formulating national strategy as OPD representatives,
acting for the Chief of Staff, had exercised in the joint and combined staff
system. The awkward element in the position of Plans and Operations, and that
of the Army as a whole, was uncertainty as to how long a transition period the
new machinery would require before it became reliably efficient.

The whole system as finally worked out on the basis of Circular 138 of 1946 and
the National Security Act of 1947 appeared

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strangely similar to the 1941 structure. The Chief of Staff still had command
of a huge, complicated organization. He still needed well-organized,
comprehensive staff work to assist him in formulating decisions and car
rying them out. The Department of the Army had plenty of staffs, as the War Department
had in 1941, but it did not reflect very clearly any particular philosophy of
staff support of the high command in Washington.
Whatever may be the way Army staff organization and practice develop from the
1947 pattern, it is unlikely to follow exactly the precedents of World War II. New tasks and new difficulties demand new
ideas and new techniques. Nevertheless, the meaning of staff assistance in the
exercise of command is something that officers in the U. S. Army will always
have to try to understand intimately and fully. The experience of OPD in World War II will always shed
some light on this basic military problem, as well as on the perennial problem
of any living institution, that is, keeping organization and principles of conduct in line with mission and
functions.